The effectiveness of alkali-acid modification in enhancement the adsorption capacity of rice straw (RS) for removing a basic dye was studied. The obtained adsorbents were characterized by slurry pH, pHPZC, iodine number, methylene blue number, FTIR, and SEM analyses. Adsorption of methylene blue (MB) was described by the Langmuir, Freundlich, Tempkin, and Redlich-Peterson isotherm models. Effects of contact time, initial concentration of MB dye, pH of solution, adsorbent dose, salt concentration of NaCl, and desorbing agents on the removal of MB were reported. Kinetic studies were analyzed using the pseudo-first-order, pseudo-second-order, and the intraparticle diffusion models and were found to follow closely the pseudo-second-order model. Equilibrium data were best represented by the Langmuir and Redlich-Peterson isotherms. The adsorption capacities were varied between 32.6 and 131.5 mg/g for untreated and treated RS samples with NaOH-1M citric acid (ARS-1C), respectively. Adsorption behavior of the ARS-1C sample was experimented in a binary mixture containing methylene blue (basic) and reactive blue 19 (acidic) dyes which showed its ability to remove MB higher than RB19. Overall, the results indicate that the alkali-acid treatment proved to be potential modification for producing effective low-cost adsorbents for the removal of the basic dyes from wastewater.

The green synthesis of metal nanoparticles is growing dramatically; however, the toxicity of these biosynthesized particles against living organisms is not fully explored. Therefore, this study was designed to synthesize and characterize TiO 2 -NPs, encapsulation and characterization thyme essential oil (ETEO), determination of the bioactive constituents of ETEO using GC-MS and evaluate their protective role against TiO 2 -NPs-induced the oxidative damage and genotoxicity in rats. Six groups of rats were treated orally for 30 days including the control group, TiO 2 -NPs (300 mg/kg b.w)-treated group, ETEO at low (50 mg/kg b.w) or high dose (100 mg/kg b.w)-treated groups TiO 2 -NPs plus ETEO at the two doses-treated groups. Blood and tissues were collected for different assays. The GC-MS results indicated the presence of 21 compounds belongs to phenols, terpene derivatives, and heterocyclic compounds. The synthesized TiO 2 -NPs were 45 nm tetragonal particles with a zeta potential of -27.34 mV; however, ETEO were 119 nm round particles with a zeta potential of -28.33 mV. TiO 2 -NPs administration disturbs the liver and kidney markers, lipid pro le, cytokines, oxidative stress parameters, the apoptotic and antioxidant hepatic mRNA expression and induced histological alterations in the liver and kidney tissues. ETEO could improve all these parameters in a dosedependent manner. It could be concluded that ETEO is a promising candidate for the protection against TiO 2 -NPs and can be applied safely in food applications.against thermal and chemical degradation and control the delivery release at the desired site and time (Tao et al. 2014). The current study was designed to synthesize and characterize TiO 2 -NPs by green chemistry using orange peel extract, encapsulate and characterize TEO, and evaluate the potential protective activity of the encapsulated TEO (ETEO) against the oxidative damage and genotoxicity of TiO 2 -NPs in rats. Materials And Methods Chemicals and KitsTitanium tetra isopropoxide (TTIP) and whey protein isolate (WPI) were purchased from Sigma-Aldrich (St. Louis, MO, USA). Kits for transaminase (ALT and AST) were purchased from Randox Co, (Antrim, UK), triglycerides (TriG), cholesterol (Cho), low and high density lipoprotein (LDL, HDL), creatinine, urea, albumin (Alb) and total protein (TP) were purchased from FAR Diagnostics Co. (Via Fermi, Italy). Kits for nitric oxide (NO), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) were obtained from Eagle diagnostics (Dallas, TX, USA). Malondialdehyde (MDA) kit was purchased from Oxis Research TM Co. (USA). ELISA kit for alpha feta protein (AFP) was purchased from BiochemImmuno Systems Co. (Montreal, Canada). Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) kit was purchased from Orgenium (Helsinki, Finland). A Kit for measuring carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) was obtained from Biodiagnostic (Giza, Egypt). PreMixc DNA Kit was obtained from iNtRON Biotechnology (Korea).TRIZOL reagent was purchased from Life Technologies Corporation (Grand Islan...

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Wastewater treatment of some heavy metals was carried out by synthetic zeolite P1, which was prepared by alkaline hydrothermal treatment of the pumice. Both of the pumice raw materials and synthetic zeolite were investigated for their chemical phase composition, physical properties, and microstructure. The adsorption behavior of Na-zeolite P1 with respect to Co+2, Cu+2, Fe+2, and Cd+2 has been studied to be applied in the industrial wastewater treatment. Metal removal was investigated using synthetic solutions at different ions concentrations, time, and Na-P1 zeolite doses as well as constant temperature and pH. It is concluded that the optimum conditions for synthesis of highly active Na-P1 zeolite from natural pumice raw material are one molar NaOH concentration, temperature at 80°C, and one week as a crystallization time. In addition to the effect of time and zeolite dose as well as the ion concentration of the reaction efficiency for metals removals are recorded.